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Your Weekly Guide to New Movies for
May 5, 2006
By Edward Douglas -
Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend
Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend’s new movies. Tune in every
Tuesday for the latest look at the upcoming weekend, and then check
back on Friday for final projections based on actual theatre counts.
THE BATTLE CRY!
(If you have anything to say about this or anything else written in the column, feedback and Email is always welcome, and almost always responded to.)
Huzzah! It’s the summer
movie season again, and hopefully, by the time you’ve read this,
I’ve already finished my excrutiatingly difficult summer box office
preview. Maybe I’m too much of an optimist for my own good, but
it definitely seems like this summer will do far better than the
last one, if only for the fact that there are more anticipated sequels
and big budget remakes that might be closer in tone to the originals.
It also feels as if the business might be spread out more among
the big movies this year rather than having a huge colossus like
Star Wars: Episode III and then dozens of disappointments
and near-misses.
If you asked me a few months ago about this week’s summer kick-off, I probably would have said, “Mission: Impossible III? Who cares?” Now after four months of really dull and boring movies, I’m ready for a straight out balls-to-the-wall action flick as only something with a budget like M:i:III or X-Men: The Last Stand can deliver, and I’m also looking forward to seeing how Ron Howard and Tom Hanks bring The Da Vinci Code to life. Sure, I know that my expectations are going to be too high and a few of them will disappoint, but it will be so nice to be able to go watch a movie with some popcorn and a soda and turn my brain off for a bit, and not in a Benchwarmers kind of way either.
Despite the wonderful double dose of R-rated humor in Wedding Crashers and 40-Year-Old Virgin, I’m not so optimistic about the comedies this year. I dunno. I just don’t think the world needs another Adam Sandler, Jack Black or Will Ferrell movie, and even Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are getting played. Maybe this will finally be the summer that the Broken Lizard troupe breaks out and finds the audience that appreciates dumb, sophomoric humor that doesn’t star Robin Williams, Steve Martin or Rob Schneider.
And who knows? Maybe amidst all the Cars, sinking boats and snakes on a plane, there may be a few really good memorable movies that we’ll remember come December, or we’ll find some new talents to replace the Lohans and Duffs of the world. And maybe this September I won’t be kvetching about how disappointed I am that nothing I hoped for came to pass… again.
THE CHOSEN ONE(S):
Once again, we have a theme for this week’s “Chosen One” because there are two movies that really can’t be overlooked:
DOWN IN THE VALLEY (THINKFilm)
Starring Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, David Morse, Rory Culkin, Bruce Dern
Written and directed by David Jacobson (Dahmer, Criminal)
Rated R for violence, sexual content, language and drug use
Genre: Drama, Romance, Western
Story: When Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) meets Harlan (Edward Norton), a polite older man who lives his life like a cowboy of the old West, something that seems strangely out of place in the San Bernadino Valley, it starts to concer her father (David Morse). Soon, Harlan is injecting more and more into their family until the two men have their final showdown.
THE PROPOSITION (First Run Features)
Starring Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, John Hurt, David Wenham, Emily Watson
Directed by John Hillcoat (Ghosts… of the Civil Dead); Written by Nick Cave (Ghosts…of the Civil Dead)
Rated R for strong grisly violence, and for language
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Western
Story: Set in the Australian Outback of the late 1800’s, this is the story of outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), who is captured by a British law enforcement and forced to go into the mountains to find and bring back his murderous brother Arthur (Danny Huston) before Christmas, or else their younger brother will be hung.
The Western is a movie genre that has been kept alive in the last few decades by the likes of Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood, but in the last year, there seems to be a concerted desire to revive and revitalize the genre in new and innovative ways. Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was a perfect example, and even Brokeback Mountain was a new take on the Western, as co-written by “Lonesome Dove” writer Larry McMurtry. You also can’t really overlook the popularity of HBO’s gritty Western series “Deadwood.” This week, we have two new movies that borrow liberally from the classic Westerns but give them a different spin thanks to their use of unique tone and setting.
David Jacobson’s film takes place in the modern day San Bernadino Valley, where Edward Norton’s old-fashioned cowboy creates a rift in a local family when he enters their lives. John Hillcoat’s The Proposition, his second collaboration with singer/songwriter Nick Cave after their 1988 prison drama Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, is set in the same time period as “Deadwood,” but moves the story to the Australian Outback, in the middle of a struggle between the British law, the native Aborigines, and the criminal element exported to the country from the British Isles. The fact that I’m a fan of both Edward Norton and Nick Cave certainly had a lot to do with why both these movies immediately got my interested.
I had a chance to talk to the directors of both movies in the past week, and they explained how they ended up turning to the classic Westerns as inspiration for their modern tales:
“The one thing I wanted to do was try and make something that was quite truthful about how brutal those times were,” Hillcoat told me when asked about the darkness of his film. “Our history has been kind of whitewashed in many ways, so kind of by necessity, making a story about the frontier, it had to be [dark] or otherwise, it would be a kind of myth. There are some funny lines that audiences laugh at and a great beauty and lyrical qualities to the movie that I wouldn’t call dark. There’s contrast.”
“Harlan’s a strange character,” Jacobson told me when asked about Edward Norton’s character. “The way the whole story started was that I was writing about my own childhood growing up in the Valley; the characters of Tobe and Lonny are a little bit like me and my sister. I was living in Paris, while I was writing about these experiences, and I was watching all these classic Westerns. Somehow, I got this idea that this cowboy character would come into their lives and save them from their bleak existence. Maybe it was a wish I had growing up. I was also rewriting “Dahmer” while working on this, so I think that got mixed in, too. I’m definitely into pathological characters, because so many possibilities for truths and understandings about all of us come out. I don’t see them as separate from us; I see them as more extreme versions of us, so I think it’s such a fascinating place to focus, plus they’re characters who are often unpredictable. I think that it’s easy to get lost in America, because there is that sense of identity or community in place, so I think that’s what I was more focused in on, as well as the whole cowboy myth, especially with President Bush, and how he plays off that cowboy persona.”
Jacobson explained why he felt Edward Norton would be perfect to play Harlan. “My producer, Holly Wiersma, asked me who I wanted to play the role and I said, “Edward Norton” thinking it was a longshot. I love character actors, and Edward is one of the few leading man character actors. Even though he has charisma to play a lead, he really can sink into roles and become a different person and I love that, plus he’s also very mercurial and can just ride that edge of playing two different personalities, which we’ve seen in many of his films. He also reminded me a little bit of Henry Fonda, who played the lead in My Darling Clementine. [Holly] knew his agent and called him up with the script, but Edward was working on his own script to direct. That wasn’t very encouraging, but we sent it over and then waited one week, two weeks, three weeks. Really, we were just about to give up and then lo and behold, his agent called and said they read it and were interested.”
Hillcoat had his own pathological character to deal with in Danny Huston’s
older brother, Arthur, living deep in the mountains almost like a wild
animal. “With the character of Arthur, there was sometimes pressure to
have flashback and back story to explain why this character is the way
he is, but we were quite determined to not do that. We all agreed that
we didn’t want to make the character less alive by over-explaining him
in a pat way. Exposition can be tedious and also, the struggles with morality,
who is good and who is bad. If there suddenly was a flashback showing what
everyone was doing, you’d actually lose the tension. A lot of the cast
were really supportive about not having flashbacks and the idea of playing
these characters that were good and bad. For them, it was a breath of fresh
air, because they just don’t get those kind of roles.”
In Norton, Jacobson ended up finding a stalwart collaborator, and the actor ended up producing the film. “Edward was visiting Los Angeles, and supposedly, he only had 20 or 30 minutes to talk to me, but we ended up talking for over 3 and a half hours. We really hit it off, and I think that helped convince him. I’m a relatively unknown filmmaker obviously, so I think he had to gain confidence in me, and I think that conversation really helped. He first signed on as an actor, but once he signed on, financing became much easier. It’s a relatively low budget film, but if it hadn’t been him or a rung of an actor below or an unknown actor, it probably would have been a 1 and a half million dollar film, so it certainly made production of it much easier. Then, of course, a lot of the other actors were very excited to work with Edward. He’s that kind of actor. For Evan, he was her favorite actor growing up, so she really wanted to work with him. Edward was actually a really good editor. It wasn’t at all like he was trying to put his imprint on [the script]. He was really trying to help draw out the themes and ideas I had about the film and making it sharper.”
Hillcoat also told me about the rigors of shooting in the Australian Outback during the summer. “It’s madness,” he said. “The locals would get up at 4 in the morning and they’d be inside and in air-conditioned by 11 and they thought we were insane because we were working right through the day. The flies and heat were there. Dehydration was a major issue, as was heat stroke. We persevered with it because everyone knew that the fact that were filming this at that time would give the movie an extra layer if we did it in the winter. The sun is almost an aggressive character in the daytime, where it’s just blasting and it hurts, and yet at sunset, it’s also absolutely breathtaking. The land is so brutal and harsh, and yet there are these moments of amazing beauty.”
If you live in New York or Los Angeles, your mission this weekend, if you choose to accept it, is to skip Mission: Impossible III—don’t worry, it’ll be around for awhile—and go see one or both of these great new films.
NEW THIS WEEK:
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
III (Paramount)
Starring Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Simon Pegg, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q
Directed by J. J. Abrams (“Alias” and “Lost”); Written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci (The Island, The Legend of Zorro), J.J. Abrams (“Alias”)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of frenetic violence & menace, disturbing images & some sensuality)
Tagline: “The Mission Begins”
Story: Agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his Impossible Missions Force (IMF) are back, this time trying to take down a ruthless arms dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who kidnaps Hunt’s fiancé (Michelle Monaghan), in an attempt to use that against him.
Mini-Review: There's no question that this threequel is a marked improvement over the previous installment, at least in terms of story, writing and acting. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Billy Crudup are obvious stand-outs, and Laurence Fishburne, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg often stealing scenes with their great lines. That said, there's a certain violent grittiness to the movie that makes things seem too real, rather than the escapism that some people might want from their summer popcorn flicks. Also, the camerawork is not as impressive on a cinematic scale as it could have been, showing Abrams' obvious filmmaking inexperience. Rating: 8/10
The summer kicks off with the return of a franchise that has proven time and time again that if you put a big star in a big budget action film, audiences will turn out en masse. Mission: Impossible II was the third-highest grossing movie of 2000 with over $215 million, and the first movie, which originally started out as a big screen version of the ‘70s espionage show--think “This message will destruct in five seconds”--was the third-highest grossing movie four years earlier.
It’s been six years since the fast-paced action sequel directed by Hong Kong favorite John Woo, and after many false starts with other directors and actors being replaced, Cruise, a producer since the series’ inception, has finally found the perfect director to follow John Woo and take the franchise into a new direction, which may actually more towards the original television show. That director is J.J. Abrams, creator of popular Emmy Award winning dramas like “Alias” and “Lost.” This high-profile threequel will be Abrams’ first feature film, which he cowrote along with his “Alias” collaborators, Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci.
There’s really not much that can be said about Tom Cruise that hasn’t been said in any of my numerous columns discussing his past movies from Minority Report and Vanilla Sky through last year’s War of the Worlds. (You can read more about Cruise in the Star Spotlight below.) Obviously, teaming with Steven Spielberg for the latter sci-fi remake produced one of the biggest hits of Cruise’s career, which makes this a perfect time to return to the Mission: Impossible well. Of course, there’s all of the bad Scientology press Cruise has been dealing with in the last year, but like War of the Worlds, it won’t really matter, because when it comes down to it, Cruise knows how to deliver an entertaining film, and action fans should be out in droves.
Cruise and Abrams have brought on an all-star line-up, although Ving Rhames becomes the only other actor to return for his third go-round. The bad guy is played by a dramatic powerhouse, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is coming off his Oscar winning leading role in the biodrama Capote. Hoffman has come along away from the movies of Paul Thomas Anderson and studio dreck like Along Came Polly, and he should bring a new level of ruthlessness to the movie bad guy. Also adding a bit more dramatic weight is Laurence Fishburne, who has experience with blockbuster franchises having played “Morpheus” in all three Matrix movies.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Mission: Impossible if Tom Cruise didn’t have a love interest, and this time, Ethan Hunt even has a fiancé, allowing him to canoodle with Michelle Monaghan, who has appeared in movies like The Bourne Supremacy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Joining Ving Rhames on the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) is Keri Russell, best remembered from the show “Felicity,” Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, star of Woody Allen’s Match Point, and Maggie Q, a hot Asian actress making her second American feature after a small part in Rush Hour 2. It also includes a role for Simon Pegg, who starred as the title character in the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead. (The movie also features an appearance by my good friend Kevin Copelan, so everyone should go see it in order to play “Spot Kevin.” If you do see him, make sure to yell “KEVIN!” at the top of your lungs.)
The question is how much of an audience J.J. Abrams might bring to the franchise compared to John Woo, because success on TV doesn’t always translate into success at the box office, as recently learned by “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon. Regardless, this is irrefutably the first bonafide event movie of the year, and as the new Paramount’s biggest movie of the summer, marketing and advertising has been in high gear, making it almost impossible to escape it. Most people will know it opens on Friday thanks to tie-in commercials, bus and subway posters and the ubiquitous talk show appearances, and early reviews and word-of-mouth are very positive, which should certainly help convince anyone unsure of whether to see it or not.
Trying to determine who may want to see it, there’s only one correct answer: EVERYONE. This is the first real action movie in a long, long time, and guys of every age are probably antsy for a solid action-thriller like this, while women from 13 to 40 will be seeing it for Cruise and the romantic angle. Fans of the original show who might give the franchise another chance in hopes that it’s more in line with their expectations, which means it will have more appeal to the over-40 market than other summer action films. In general, this should have a solid cross-section of interest and appeal from teens on up, both male and female, which is exactly what a movie like this needs to really succeed.
The only problem is that it will be facing back-to-back-to-back blockbuster competition in Poseidon, The Da Vinci Code, and then X-Men: The Last Stand, which might make it impossible for this to have any legs. That said, it should have an impressive enough opening to give it a good head start on the summer.
(UPDATE: Wow! MI3 becomes the first movie since last year's Madagascar to be released into over 4,000 theatres, making it the fourth widest release ever!)
Why I Should See It: Tom Cruise and J. J. Abrams teaming up for an action-espionage movie. How can this possibly be bad?
Why Not: Yeah, I kind of felt that same way about Mission: Impossible II.
Projection: $67 to 70 million opening weekend on its way to just over $190 million or even close to $200 million.
AN AMERICAN HAUNTING (After
Dark Films)
Starring Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, James D'Arcy, Thom Fell
Written and directed by Courtney Solomon (Dungeons and Dragons)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated PG-13 for intense terror sequences and thematic material
Tagline: “Possession Knows No Bounds”
Story: In 1817, a family in Tennessee is haunted by a nasty ghost after they’re cursed by a woman suspected of being a witch.
REVIEW
Based on the book “The Bell Witch: An American Haunting” by Brent Monahan, this new horror movie from Courtney Solomon, the director behind the 2001 flop Dungeon and Dragons, tries to prove the existence of real ghosts by going back to the only documented case in history of someone being murdered by a ghost.
Who knows how much of that truth is left in this supernatural thriller, but a couple things make An American Haunting different from the slew of studio horror movies coming out in recent months. The most important one is that it was independently produced, and it’s being distributed by a new entity created by Solomon to primarily focus on genre and horror films. Rather than resorting to the blood and gore of recent horror movies, American Haunting is more of a psychological chiller in the vein of Nicole Kidman’s The Others or The Exorcism of Emily Rose with a lot of supernatural based scares, though it will have trouble avoiding the comparisons to M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village because of the time period in which the story is set.
Usually, this type of horror film stars complete unknowns or the latest hot teen star, but in this case, it actually stars two film legends, Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland. Spacek, who has been nominated for six Academy Awards, has quite a bit of experience in the horror genre, like her breakout role in Brian De Palma’s movie based on Stephen King’s Carrie, and she also played a small role in 2005’s horror sequel The Ring Two. Sutherland’s on the comeback trail after last year’s Pride and Prejudice and his role on the television show “Commander in Chief,” and this role takes him back to his early days as the star of Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 ghost film Don’t Look Now. Though Sutherland isn’t normally associated with horror, he’s done a few TV movies in the genre, and going back 40 years, you can find his name as part of the cast of Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors.
Although it’s often hard for new distributors to get theatres, as seen by the case of Romar Releasing’s BloodRayne earlier this year, the film has a relatively short running time, so it should be able to get a good number of showings even if it only gets one screen in each theatre. The question is whether anyone knows of this movie’s existence and whether they might see it as opposed to the higher profile Mission: Impossible III. Horror movies tend to draw a young and mostly male crowd, although the draw of Spacek and Sutherland might actually bring in a few curious older folks and those aware of the source material. Unfortunately, After Dark just doesn’t have the money to really get the word out on the movie, although they’re apparently spending more on prints and promotion than the movie cost. Their first release will be relying on word-of-mouth for any sort of shelflife coming out in such a busy period, and it’s more likely to make an impact once it hits DVD.
Why I Should See It: It’s pretty damn scary!
Why Not: Does anyone even know the movie is coming out, and if so, do they even care?
Projection: $4 to 6 million on its way to $15 to 20 million.
HOOT (New
Line)
Starring Luke Wilson, Logan Lerman, Brie Larson, Cody Linley, Tim Blake Nelson
Written and directed by Will Shriner (directorial debut by a TV director)
Genre: Family, Drama, Adventure
Rated PG for mild bullying and brief language
Tagline: “It’s time to stand up for the little guys.”
Story: A boy from Montana moves down to Coconut Grove, Florida where he and his two friends must take on land developers who threaten a nest of endangered burrowing baby owls.
Walden Media, the company behind big screen adaptations of popular children’s books like Holes, Because of Winn-Dixie and Chronicles of Narnia, brings Carl Hiiasen’s 2002 Newberry award winning novel Hoot to the big screen, in hopes of attracting some of the same family audiences as those other movies.
The film stars Luke Wilson as a bumbling cop, possibly signifying Wilson’s desire to get more mainstream appeal after appearing in so many quirky movies, like those by Wes Anderson, and it starts off a busy summer for Wilson, having kept a fairly low profile in recent years. With the exception of his hilarious performance in last year’s The Family Stone, he hasn’t really done much since 2003 when he starred in the hit comedy Old School, followed by two disappointing sequels: Legally Blonde 2 and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and in the romantic comedy flop Alex and Emma, opposite Kate Hudson. In July, he stars opposite Uma Thurman in the superhero romantic comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend. The movie also stars Tim Blake Nelson as the bumbling construction site foreman, following his appearance in Walden Media’s Holes.
Walden Media certainly has found its niche by adapting popular childrens’ books, but for every Narnia or Holes, they’ve had some serious flops, most notably 2004’s Around the World in 80 Days, which didn’t come close to making back its money. Hoot is only their second non-Disney venture after Because of Winn-Dixie, which made only $10 million its opening weekend on its way to $32 million.
Originally, Hoot was going to be released during the spring, which may have been a much better time to find its family audiences, although the movie shouldn’t be too affected by the movies coming out in the next few weeks. While it doesn’t seem like a movie about saving owls would really have that much more interest for family audiences than a dog movie, the mellower premise will over decent counter-programming to the other movies in theatres.
Why I Should See It: Those little owls are soooooo adorable.
Why Not: Okay, I’ll admit it. It might be more entertaining to see them get bull-dozered, but they wouldn’t do that, right?
Projection: $9 to 11 million on its way to $35 million total by the time it leaves theatres.
THE PROMISE (Warner
Independent Pictures)
Starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Jang Dong-Kun, Cecilia Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Liu Ye
Written and directed by Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine, Temptress Moon, The Emperor and the Assassin)
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Foreign
Rated PG-13 for stylized violence and martial arts action, and some sexual content
Story: Set in China’s mythical past, a beautiful princess (Cecilia Cheung) finds herself caught in a battle between three very different men: a Duke, a general and a lowly slave.
Chen Kaige, China’s master filmmaker, responsible for classics like Farewell My Concubine, returns with a fantasy epic, which cost more money than any other movie made in China, but also became the highest-grossing film in the country when released there. The film is almost like a magical fable that will probably appeal to fans of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers, with the kind of CGI enhanced action that will appeal to fans of Stephen Chow’s films. Kaige has even teamed with the cinematographer and production designer of Crouching Tiger to create a magical and colorful world, and his cast includes actors from Japan and Korea, continuing the pan-Asian connection seen in movies like House of Flying Daggers. Originally, the film was to be released by the Weinstein Company under the name Master of the Crimson Armor, but Chen Kaige’s latest film finally will open in over 200 theatres in select cities this weekend with expansion plans throughout May.
Why I Should See It: Beautiful visuals and amazing high-flying action should keep audiences enthralled.
Why Not: These kinds of movies tend to be very strange for those not accustomed to them.
ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (Sony
Pictures Classics)
Starring Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Anjelica Huston
Directed by Terry Zwygoff (Ghost World, Crumb, Bad Santa); Written by Daniel Clowes (Ghost World)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Rated R for language including sexual references, nudity and a scene of violence
Story: Jerome Platz (Max Minghella) has spent his whole life wanting to be a great artist, so he goes to the Strathmore Art Institute in New York City, a world of offbeat characters including the quirky art teacher (John Malkovich) who takes an interest in Jerome’s career. He’s too busy being obsessed with nude model Audrey (Sophia Myles), as he starts to learn that the world of art is not as easy as he thought. Meanwhile, a serial killer is terrorizing the school, and local authorities think that the brooding Jerome is their chief suspect.
REVIEW
In 2001, comic book creator Daniel Clowes and director Terry Zwygoff teamed for a movie version of Clowes’ popular underground comic strip Ghost World, a movie that introduced the world to Scarlett Johansson. Now, five years later, the duo reteam, this time on an original movie based on a title of one of Clowes’ strips, and Zwygoff has the benefits of Bad Santa under his belt to help bring people in. This one stars producer John Malkovich as an obviously gay art teacher who is more concerned about his own art career than his students’, as well as appearances by British Oscar winner Jim Broadbent and Anjelica Huston in a small role. The lead character Jerome is played by Max Minghella, last seen in Richard Gere’s Bee Season and very briefly in Steven Gaghan’s political drama Syriana, and his love interest is played by Tristan and Isolde’s Sophie Myles. Still, people won’t be seeing this for the cast, as much as for the quirky vision of Clowes and Zwigoff, which should offer lots of warped laughs. Their latest collaboration opens in New York and L.A and a few other cities.
Why I Should See It: The wacky humor of Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwygoff is always worth a few laughs.
Why Not: Their humor tends to be an acquired taste, and this isn’t based on one of Clowes’ previous comic stories.
STAR SPOTLIGHT: Tom Cruise
When
discussing this week’s star, we can go all the way back to his roots
as a teen idol in the early ‘80s, but instead, we’re just going
to deal with the last ten years in Cruise’s career, his mature years,
because they probably are the most significant even though he had
two huge hits in the late ‘80s with Rain Man and Top Gun.
(If you want to read more about Cruise, you can check out this piece
by my good pals at World
of KJ.) The key thing is that cumulatively, Cruise’s movies
have grossed nearly $3 billion in the U.S. and almost double that
if you include international box office, with his average gross
per movie being just under $100 million, higher than any other box
office star.
As of this writing, last summer’s War of the Worlds is Cruise’s highest grossing film domestically and internationally, helped by an astounding five day pre-4th of July take of $102 million. That’s almost 75% of the TOTAL gross of his last team-up with Spielberg, the 2002 adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report.
When Cruise decided to take on the ‘70s television show Mission: Impossible almost ten years ago, he was already a huge star, having headlined dozens of hit movies, including the summer blockbuster Top Gun ten years earlier. He had also already been nominated for an Academy Award after starring in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July. A year after M:I became his highest grossing film, he was nominated for another Oscar for Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire.
He took a couple years off, working on the erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut with the late Stanley Kubrick and then-wife Nicole Kidman, and received another Oscar nod for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, before returning to summer blockbuster fare, bringing hot Hong Kong director John Woo on board for the sequel Mission: Impossible II, which made even more money than the previous film to become Cruise’s highest grossing film.
When his marriage to Kidman dissolved in 2001, he started dating Penelope Cruz, his co-star in his reunion with Cameron Crowe for Vanilla Sky. Not very well received, the movie wasn’t as big a success as some expected, despite making over $100 million. His next few movies—the aforementioned Minority Report, The Last Samurai and Michael Mann’s thriller Collateral—each underperformed what many people thought Cruise should be able to deliver. And then came 2005, new management, his new relationship with Katie Holmes and his second movie with Steven Spielberg. Suddenly, Cruise was all over the tabloids and talk shows in a big way, and surprise surprise, he was more successful than ever!
Negative backlash about what some consider Cruise’s “crazy” behavior—his support of Scientology to the point of attacking other stars and his couch-jumping escapade on Oprah--certainly hasn’t affected his popularity, and it seems that people are more interested in Cruise and his movies than ever, all good signs for Mission: Impossible III.
If you asked me a few months ago about this week’s summer kick-off, I probably would have said, “Mission: Impossible III? Who cares?” Now after four months of really dull and boring movies, I’m ready for a straight out balls-to-the-wall action flick as only something with a budget like M:i:III or X-Men: The Last Stand can deliver, and I’m also looking forward to seeing how Ron Howard and Tom Hanks bring The Da Vinci Code to life. Sure, I know that my expectations are going to be too high and a few of them will disappoint, but it will be so nice to be able to go watch a movie with some popcorn and a soda and turn my brain off for a bit, and not in a Benchwarmers kind of way either.
Despite the wonderful double dose of R-rated humor in Wedding Crashers and 40-Year-Old Virgin, I’m not so optimistic about the comedies this year. I dunno. I just don’t think the world needs another Adam Sandler, Jack Black or Will Ferrell movie, and even Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are getting played. Maybe this will finally be the summer that the Broken Lizard troupe breaks out and finds the audience that appreciates dumb, sophomoric humor that doesn’t star Robin Williams, Steve Martin or Rob Schneider.
And who knows? Maybe amidst all the Cars, sinking boats and snakes on a plane, there may be a few really good memorable movies that we’ll remember come December, or we’ll find some new talents to replace the Lohans and Duffs of the world. And maybe this September I won’t be kvetching about how disappointed I am that nothing I hoped for came to pass… again.
THE CHOSEN ONE(S):
Once again, we have a theme for this week’s “Chosen One” because there are two movies that really can’t be overlooked:
DOWN IN THE VALLEY (THINKFilm)Starring Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, David Morse, Rory Culkin, Bruce Dern
Written and directed by David Jacobson (Dahmer, Criminal)
Rated R for violence, sexual content, language and drug use
Genre: Drama, Romance, Western
Story: When Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) meets Harlan (Edward Norton), a polite older man who lives his life like a cowboy of the old West, something that seems strangely out of place in the San Bernadino Valley, it starts to concer her father (David Morse). Soon, Harlan is injecting more and more into their family until the two men have their final showdown.
THE PROPOSITION (First Run Features)
Starring Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, John Hurt, David Wenham, Emily Watson
Directed by John Hillcoat (Ghosts… of the Civil Dead); Written by Nick Cave (Ghosts…of the Civil Dead)
Rated R for strong grisly violence, and for language
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Western
Story: Set in the Australian Outback of the late 1800’s, this is the story of outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), who is captured by a British law enforcement and forced to go into the mountains to find and bring back his murderous brother Arthur (Danny Huston) before Christmas, or else their younger brother will be hung.
The Western is a movie genre that has been kept alive in the last few decades by the likes of Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood, but in the last year, there seems to be a concerted desire to revive and revitalize the genre in new and innovative ways. Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was a perfect example, and even Brokeback Mountain was a new take on the Western, as co-written by “Lonesome Dove” writer Larry McMurtry. You also can’t really overlook the popularity of HBO’s gritty Western series “Deadwood.” This week, we have two new movies that borrow liberally from the classic Westerns but give them a different spin thanks to their use of unique tone and setting.
David Jacobson’s film takes place in the modern day San Bernadino Valley, where Edward Norton’s old-fashioned cowboy creates a rift in a local family when he enters their lives. John Hillcoat’s The Proposition, his second collaboration with singer/songwriter Nick Cave after their 1988 prison drama Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, is set in the same time period as “Deadwood,” but moves the story to the Australian Outback, in the middle of a struggle between the British law, the native Aborigines, and the criminal element exported to the country from the British Isles. The fact that I’m a fan of both Edward Norton and Nick Cave certainly had a lot to do with why both these movies immediately got my interested.
I had a chance to talk to the directors of both movies in the past week, and they explained how they ended up turning to the classic Westerns as inspiration for their modern tales:
“The one thing I wanted to do was try and make something that was quite truthful about how brutal those times were,” Hillcoat told me when asked about the darkness of his film. “Our history has been kind of whitewashed in many ways, so kind of by necessity, making a story about the frontier, it had to be [dark] or otherwise, it would be a kind of myth. There are some funny lines that audiences laugh at and a great beauty and lyrical qualities to the movie that I wouldn’t call dark. There’s contrast.”
“Harlan’s a strange character,” Jacobson told me when asked about Edward Norton’s character. “The way the whole story started was that I was writing about my own childhood growing up in the Valley; the characters of Tobe and Lonny are a little bit like me and my sister. I was living in Paris, while I was writing about these experiences, and I was watching all these classic Westerns. Somehow, I got this idea that this cowboy character would come into their lives and save them from their bleak existence. Maybe it was a wish I had growing up. I was also rewriting “Dahmer” while working on this, so I think that got mixed in, too. I’m definitely into pathological characters, because so many possibilities for truths and understandings about all of us come out. I don’t see them as separate from us; I see them as more extreme versions of us, so I think it’s such a fascinating place to focus, plus they’re characters who are often unpredictable. I think that it’s easy to get lost in America, because there is that sense of identity or community in place, so I think that’s what I was more focused in on, as well as the whole cowboy myth, especially with President Bush, and how he plays off that cowboy persona.”
Jacobson explained why he felt Edward Norton would be perfect to play Harlan. “My producer, Holly Wiersma, asked me who I wanted to play the role and I said, “Edward Norton” thinking it was a longshot. I love character actors, and Edward is one of the few leading man character actors. Even though he has charisma to play a lead, he really can sink into roles and become a different person and I love that, plus he’s also very mercurial and can just ride that edge of playing two different personalities, which we’ve seen in many of his films. He also reminded me a little bit of Henry Fonda, who played the lead in My Darling Clementine. [Holly] knew his agent and called him up with the script, but Edward was working on his own script to direct. That wasn’t very encouraging, but we sent it over and then waited one week, two weeks, three weeks. Really, we were just about to give up and then lo and behold, his agent called and said they read it and were interested.”
Hillcoat had his own pathological character to deal with in Danny Huston’s
older brother, Arthur, living deep in the mountains almost like a wild
animal. “With the character of Arthur, there was sometimes pressure to
have flashback and back story to explain why this character is the way
he is, but we were quite determined to not do that. We all agreed that
we didn’t want to make the character less alive by over-explaining him
in a pat way. Exposition can be tedious and also, the struggles with morality,
who is good and who is bad. If there suddenly was a flashback showing what
everyone was doing, you’d actually lose the tension. A lot of the cast
were really supportive about not having flashbacks and the idea of playing
these characters that were good and bad. For them, it was a breath of fresh
air, because they just don’t get those kind of roles.” In Norton, Jacobson ended up finding a stalwart collaborator, and the actor ended up producing the film. “Edward was visiting Los Angeles, and supposedly, he only had 20 or 30 minutes to talk to me, but we ended up talking for over 3 and a half hours. We really hit it off, and I think that helped convince him. I’m a relatively unknown filmmaker obviously, so I think he had to gain confidence in me, and I think that conversation really helped. He first signed on as an actor, but once he signed on, financing became much easier. It’s a relatively low budget film, but if it hadn’t been him or a rung of an actor below or an unknown actor, it probably would have been a 1 and a half million dollar film, so it certainly made production of it much easier. Then, of course, a lot of the other actors were very excited to work with Edward. He’s that kind of actor. For Evan, he was her favorite actor growing up, so she really wanted to work with him. Edward was actually a really good editor. It wasn’t at all like he was trying to put his imprint on [the script]. He was really trying to help draw out the themes and ideas I had about the film and making it sharper.”
Hillcoat also told me about the rigors of shooting in the Australian Outback during the summer. “It’s madness,” he said. “The locals would get up at 4 in the morning and they’d be inside and in air-conditioned by 11 and they thought we were insane because we were working right through the day. The flies and heat were there. Dehydration was a major issue, as was heat stroke. We persevered with it because everyone knew that the fact that were filming this at that time would give the movie an extra layer if we did it in the winter. The sun is almost an aggressive character in the daytime, where it’s just blasting and it hurts, and yet at sunset, it’s also absolutely breathtaking. The land is so brutal and harsh, and yet there are these moments of amazing beauty.”
If you live in New York or Los Angeles, your mission this weekend, if you choose to accept it, is to skip Mission: Impossible III—don’t worry, it’ll be around for awhile—and go see one or both of these great new films.
NEW THIS WEEK:
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
III (Paramount)Starring Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Simon Pegg, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q
Directed by J. J. Abrams (“Alias” and “Lost”); Written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci (The Island, The Legend of Zorro), J.J. Abrams (“Alias”)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of frenetic violence & menace, disturbing images & some sensuality)
Tagline: “The Mission Begins”
Story: Agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his Impossible Missions Force (IMF) are back, this time trying to take down a ruthless arms dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who kidnaps Hunt’s fiancé (Michelle Monaghan), in an attempt to use that against him.
Mini-Review: There's no question that this threequel is a marked improvement over the previous installment, at least in terms of story, writing and acting. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Billy Crudup are obvious stand-outs, and Laurence Fishburne, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg often stealing scenes with their great lines. That said, there's a certain violent grittiness to the movie that makes things seem too real, rather than the escapism that some people might want from their summer popcorn flicks. Also, the camerawork is not as impressive on a cinematic scale as it could have been, showing Abrams' obvious filmmaking inexperience. Rating: 8/10
The summer kicks off with the return of a franchise that has proven time and time again that if you put a big star in a big budget action film, audiences will turn out en masse. Mission: Impossible II was the third-highest grossing movie of 2000 with over $215 million, and the first movie, which originally started out as a big screen version of the ‘70s espionage show--think “This message will destruct in five seconds”--was the third-highest grossing movie four years earlier.
It’s been six years since the fast-paced action sequel directed by Hong Kong favorite John Woo, and after many false starts with other directors and actors being replaced, Cruise, a producer since the series’ inception, has finally found the perfect director to follow John Woo and take the franchise into a new direction, which may actually more towards the original television show. That director is J.J. Abrams, creator of popular Emmy Award winning dramas like “Alias” and “Lost.” This high-profile threequel will be Abrams’ first feature film, which he cowrote along with his “Alias” collaborators, Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci.
There’s really not much that can be said about Tom Cruise that hasn’t been said in any of my numerous columns discussing his past movies from Minority Report and Vanilla Sky through last year’s War of the Worlds. (You can read more about Cruise in the Star Spotlight below.) Obviously, teaming with Steven Spielberg for the latter sci-fi remake produced one of the biggest hits of Cruise’s career, which makes this a perfect time to return to the Mission: Impossible well. Of course, there’s all of the bad Scientology press Cruise has been dealing with in the last year, but like War of the Worlds, it won’t really matter, because when it comes down to it, Cruise knows how to deliver an entertaining film, and action fans should be out in droves.
Cruise and Abrams have brought on an all-star line-up, although Ving Rhames becomes the only other actor to return for his third go-round. The bad guy is played by a dramatic powerhouse, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is coming off his Oscar winning leading role in the biodrama Capote. Hoffman has come along away from the movies of Paul Thomas Anderson and studio dreck like Along Came Polly, and he should bring a new level of ruthlessness to the movie bad guy. Also adding a bit more dramatic weight is Laurence Fishburne, who has experience with blockbuster franchises having played “Morpheus” in all three Matrix movies.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Mission: Impossible if Tom Cruise didn’t have a love interest, and this time, Ethan Hunt even has a fiancé, allowing him to canoodle with Michelle Monaghan, who has appeared in movies like The Bourne Supremacy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Joining Ving Rhames on the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) is Keri Russell, best remembered from the show “Felicity,” Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, star of Woody Allen’s Match Point, and Maggie Q, a hot Asian actress making her second American feature after a small part in Rush Hour 2. It also includes a role for Simon Pegg, who starred as the title character in the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead. (The movie also features an appearance by my good friend Kevin Copelan, so everyone should go see it in order to play “Spot Kevin.” If you do see him, make sure to yell “KEVIN!” at the top of your lungs.)
The question is how much of an audience J.J. Abrams might bring to the franchise compared to John Woo, because success on TV doesn’t always translate into success at the box office, as recently learned by “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon. Regardless, this is irrefutably the first bonafide event movie of the year, and as the new Paramount’s biggest movie of the summer, marketing and advertising has been in high gear, making it almost impossible to escape it. Most people will know it opens on Friday thanks to tie-in commercials, bus and subway posters and the ubiquitous talk show appearances, and early reviews and word-of-mouth are very positive, which should certainly help convince anyone unsure of whether to see it or not.
Trying to determine who may want to see it, there’s only one correct answer: EVERYONE. This is the first real action movie in a long, long time, and guys of every age are probably antsy for a solid action-thriller like this, while women from 13 to 40 will be seeing it for Cruise and the romantic angle. Fans of the original show who might give the franchise another chance in hopes that it’s more in line with their expectations, which means it will have more appeal to the over-40 market than other summer action films. In general, this should have a solid cross-section of interest and appeal from teens on up, both male and female, which is exactly what a movie like this needs to really succeed.
The only problem is that it will be facing back-to-back-to-back blockbuster competition in Poseidon, The Da Vinci Code, and then X-Men: The Last Stand, which might make it impossible for this to have any legs. That said, it should have an impressive enough opening to give it a good head start on the summer.
(UPDATE: Wow! MI3 becomes the first movie since last year's Madagascar to be released into over 4,000 theatres, making it the fourth widest release ever!)
Why I Should See It: Tom Cruise and J. J. Abrams teaming up for an action-espionage movie. How can this possibly be bad?
Why Not: Yeah, I kind of felt that same way about Mission: Impossible II.
Projection: $67 to 70 million opening weekend on its way to just over $190 million or even close to $200 million.
AN AMERICAN HAUNTING (After
Dark Films)Starring Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, James D'Arcy, Thom Fell
Written and directed by Courtney Solomon (Dungeons and Dragons)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated PG-13 for intense terror sequences and thematic material
Tagline: “Possession Knows No Bounds”
Story: In 1817, a family in Tennessee is haunted by a nasty ghost after they’re cursed by a woman suspected of being a witch.
REVIEW
Based on the book “The Bell Witch: An American Haunting” by Brent Monahan, this new horror movie from Courtney Solomon, the director behind the 2001 flop Dungeon and Dragons, tries to prove the existence of real ghosts by going back to the only documented case in history of someone being murdered by a ghost.
Who knows how much of that truth is left in this supernatural thriller, but a couple things make An American Haunting different from the slew of studio horror movies coming out in recent months. The most important one is that it was independently produced, and it’s being distributed by a new entity created by Solomon to primarily focus on genre and horror films. Rather than resorting to the blood and gore of recent horror movies, American Haunting is more of a psychological chiller in the vein of Nicole Kidman’s The Others or The Exorcism of Emily Rose with a lot of supernatural based scares, though it will have trouble avoiding the comparisons to M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village because of the time period in which the story is set.
Usually, this type of horror film stars complete unknowns or the latest hot teen star, but in this case, it actually stars two film legends, Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland. Spacek, who has been nominated for six Academy Awards, has quite a bit of experience in the horror genre, like her breakout role in Brian De Palma’s movie based on Stephen King’s Carrie, and she also played a small role in 2005’s horror sequel The Ring Two. Sutherland’s on the comeback trail after last year’s Pride and Prejudice and his role on the television show “Commander in Chief,” and this role takes him back to his early days as the star of Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 ghost film Don’t Look Now. Though Sutherland isn’t normally associated with horror, he’s done a few TV movies in the genre, and going back 40 years, you can find his name as part of the cast of Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors.
Although it’s often hard for new distributors to get theatres, as seen by the case of Romar Releasing’s BloodRayne earlier this year, the film has a relatively short running time, so it should be able to get a good number of showings even if it only gets one screen in each theatre. The question is whether anyone knows of this movie’s existence and whether they might see it as opposed to the higher profile Mission: Impossible III. Horror movies tend to draw a young and mostly male crowd, although the draw of Spacek and Sutherland might actually bring in a few curious older folks and those aware of the source material. Unfortunately, After Dark just doesn’t have the money to really get the word out on the movie, although they’re apparently spending more on prints and promotion than the movie cost. Their first release will be relying on word-of-mouth for any sort of shelflife coming out in such a busy period, and it’s more likely to make an impact once it hits DVD.
Why I Should See It: It’s pretty damn scary!
Why Not: Does anyone even know the movie is coming out, and if so, do they even care?
Projection: $4 to 6 million on its way to $15 to 20 million.
HOOT (New
Line)Starring Luke Wilson, Logan Lerman, Brie Larson, Cody Linley, Tim Blake Nelson
Written and directed by Will Shriner (directorial debut by a TV director)
Genre: Family, Drama, Adventure
Rated PG for mild bullying and brief language
Tagline: “It’s time to stand up for the little guys.”
Story: A boy from Montana moves down to Coconut Grove, Florida where he and his two friends must take on land developers who threaten a nest of endangered burrowing baby owls.
Walden Media, the company behind big screen adaptations of popular children’s books like Holes, Because of Winn-Dixie and Chronicles of Narnia, brings Carl Hiiasen’s 2002 Newberry award winning novel Hoot to the big screen, in hopes of attracting some of the same family audiences as those other movies.
The film stars Luke Wilson as a bumbling cop, possibly signifying Wilson’s desire to get more mainstream appeal after appearing in so many quirky movies, like those by Wes Anderson, and it starts off a busy summer for Wilson, having kept a fairly low profile in recent years. With the exception of his hilarious performance in last year’s The Family Stone, he hasn’t really done much since 2003 when he starred in the hit comedy Old School, followed by two disappointing sequels: Legally Blonde 2 and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and in the romantic comedy flop Alex and Emma, opposite Kate Hudson. In July, he stars opposite Uma Thurman in the superhero romantic comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend. The movie also stars Tim Blake Nelson as the bumbling construction site foreman, following his appearance in Walden Media’s Holes.
Walden Media certainly has found its niche by adapting popular childrens’ books, but for every Narnia or Holes, they’ve had some serious flops, most notably 2004’s Around the World in 80 Days, which didn’t come close to making back its money. Hoot is only their second non-Disney venture after Because of Winn-Dixie, which made only $10 million its opening weekend on its way to $32 million.
Originally, Hoot was going to be released during the spring, which may have been a much better time to find its family audiences, although the movie shouldn’t be too affected by the movies coming out in the next few weeks. While it doesn’t seem like a movie about saving owls would really have that much more interest for family audiences than a dog movie, the mellower premise will over decent counter-programming to the other movies in theatres.
Why I Should See It: Those little owls are soooooo adorable.
Why Not: Okay, I’ll admit it. It might be more entertaining to see them get bull-dozered, but they wouldn’t do that, right?
Projection: $9 to 11 million on its way to $35 million total by the time it leaves theatres.
THE PROMISE (Warner
Independent Pictures)Starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Jang Dong-Kun, Cecilia Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Liu Ye
Written and directed by Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine, Temptress Moon, The Emperor and the Assassin)
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Foreign
Rated PG-13 for stylized violence and martial arts action, and some sexual content
Story: Set in China’s mythical past, a beautiful princess (Cecilia Cheung) finds herself caught in a battle between three very different men: a Duke, a general and a lowly slave.
Chen Kaige, China’s master filmmaker, responsible for classics like Farewell My Concubine, returns with a fantasy epic, which cost more money than any other movie made in China, but also became the highest-grossing film in the country when released there. The film is almost like a magical fable that will probably appeal to fans of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers, with the kind of CGI enhanced action that will appeal to fans of Stephen Chow’s films. Kaige has even teamed with the cinematographer and production designer of Crouching Tiger to create a magical and colorful world, and his cast includes actors from Japan and Korea, continuing the pan-Asian connection seen in movies like House of Flying Daggers. Originally, the film was to be released by the Weinstein Company under the name Master of the Crimson Armor, but Chen Kaige’s latest film finally will open in over 200 theatres in select cities this weekend with expansion plans throughout May.
Why I Should See It: Beautiful visuals and amazing high-flying action should keep audiences enthralled.
Why Not: These kinds of movies tend to be very strange for those not accustomed to them.
ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (Sony
Pictures Classics)Starring Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Anjelica Huston
Directed by Terry Zwygoff (Ghost World, Crumb, Bad Santa); Written by Daniel Clowes (Ghost World)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Rated R for language including sexual references, nudity and a scene of violence
Story: Jerome Platz (Max Minghella) has spent his whole life wanting to be a great artist, so he goes to the Strathmore Art Institute in New York City, a world of offbeat characters including the quirky art teacher (John Malkovich) who takes an interest in Jerome’s career. He’s too busy being obsessed with nude model Audrey (Sophia Myles), as he starts to learn that the world of art is not as easy as he thought. Meanwhile, a serial killer is terrorizing the school, and local authorities think that the brooding Jerome is their chief suspect.
REVIEW
In 2001, comic book creator Daniel Clowes and director Terry Zwygoff teamed for a movie version of Clowes’ popular underground comic strip Ghost World, a movie that introduced the world to Scarlett Johansson. Now, five years later, the duo reteam, this time on an original movie based on a title of one of Clowes’ strips, and Zwygoff has the benefits of Bad Santa under his belt to help bring people in. This one stars producer John Malkovich as an obviously gay art teacher who is more concerned about his own art career than his students’, as well as appearances by British Oscar winner Jim Broadbent and Anjelica Huston in a small role. The lead character Jerome is played by Max Minghella, last seen in Richard Gere’s Bee Season and very briefly in Steven Gaghan’s political drama Syriana, and his love interest is played by Tristan and Isolde’s Sophie Myles. Still, people won’t be seeing this for the cast, as much as for the quirky vision of Clowes and Zwigoff, which should offer lots of warped laughs. Their latest collaboration opens in New York and L.A and a few other cities.
Why I Should See It: The wacky humor of Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwygoff is always worth a few laughs.
Why Not: Their humor tends to be an acquired taste, and this isn’t based on one of Clowes’ previous comic stories.
STAR SPOTLIGHT: Tom Cruise
When
discussing this week’s star, we can go all the way back to his roots
as a teen idol in the early ‘80s, but instead, we’re just going
to deal with the last ten years in Cruise’s career, his mature years,
because they probably are the most significant even though he had
two huge hits in the late ‘80s with Rain Man and Top Gun.
(If you want to read more about Cruise, you can check out this piece
by my good pals at World
of KJ.) The key thing is that cumulatively, Cruise’s movies
have grossed nearly $3 billion in the U.S. and almost double that
if you include international box office, with his average gross
per movie being just under $100 million, higher than any other box
office star. As of this writing, last summer’s War of the Worlds is Cruise’s highest grossing film domestically and internationally, helped by an astounding five day pre-4th of July take of $102 million. That’s almost 75% of the TOTAL gross of his last team-up with Spielberg, the 2002 adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report.
When Cruise decided to take on the ‘70s television show Mission: Impossible almost ten years ago, he was already a huge star, having headlined dozens of hit movies, including the summer blockbuster Top Gun ten years earlier. He had also already been nominated for an Academy Award after starring in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July. A year after M:I became his highest grossing film, he was nominated for another Oscar for Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire.
He took a couple years off, working on the erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut with the late Stanley Kubrick and then-wife Nicole Kidman, and received another Oscar nod for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, before returning to summer blockbuster fare, bringing hot Hong Kong director John Woo on board for the sequel Mission: Impossible II, which made even more money than the previous film to become Cruise’s highest grossing film.
When his marriage to Kidman dissolved in 2001, he started dating Penelope Cruz, his co-star in his reunion with Cameron Crowe for Vanilla Sky. Not very well received, the movie wasn’t as big a success as some expected, despite making over $100 million. His next few movies—the aforementioned Minority Report, The Last Samurai and Michael Mann’s thriller Collateral—each underperformed what many people thought Cruise should be able to deliver. And then came 2005, new management, his new relationship with Katie Holmes and his second movie with Steven Spielberg. Suddenly, Cruise was all over the tabloids and talk shows in a big way, and surprise surprise, he was more successful than ever!
Negative backlash about what some consider Cruise’s “crazy” behavior—his support of Scientology to the point of attacking other stars and his couch-jumping escapade on Oprah--certainly hasn’t affected his popularity, and it seems that people are more interested in Cruise and his movies than ever, all good signs for Mission: Impossible III.
|
Title |
Release Date |
Theater Count |
Previous Box Office (in millions) |
Weekend Box Office (in millions) |
Average |
Total Box Office |
|
War of the Worlds |
7/1/05 |
3,908 |
$35.68 |
$77.06 |
$19,719 |
$234.28 |
|
Mission: Impossible 2 |
5/26/00 |
3,653 |
$21.00 |
$57.85 |
$15,836 |
$215.35 |
|
Mission: Impossible |
5/24/96 |
3,012 |
$18.10 |
$45.43 |
$15,083 |
$180.98 |
|
Top Gun |
5/16/86 |
1,028 |
$8.19 |
$7,970 |
$176.78 |
|
|
Rain Man |
12/16/88 |
1,248 |
$7.01 |
$5,614 |
$171.19 |
|
|
The Firm |
7/2/93 |
2,393 |
$13.07 |
$30.48 |
$12,737 |
$158.35 |
|
Jerry Maguire |
12/13/96 |
2,531 |
$17.08 |
$6,748 |
$153.75 |
|
|
A Few Good Men |
12/11/92 |
1,925 |
$15.52 |
$8,062 |
$141.34 |
|
|
Minority Report |
6/21/02 |
3,001 |
$35.68 |
$11,889 |
$132.01 |
|
|
The Last Samurai |
12/5/03 |
2,908 |
$24.27 |
$8,346 |
$107.46 |
|
|
Interview with a Vampire |
11/11/94 |
2,604 |
$36.39 |
$13,975 |
$105.26 |
|
|
Collateral |
8/6/04 |
3,188 |
$24.70 |
$7,748 |
$101.00 |
|
|
Vanilla Sky |
12/14/01 |
2,742 |
$25.02 |
$9,123 |
$100.40 |
ALSO IN LIMITED RELEASE:
In Alex “Prey for Rock ‘n’ Roll” Steyermark’s coming-of-age dramedy ONE LAST THING… (Magnolia Pictures), Michael Angarano (“Will and Grace”) plays a 16-year-old Pennsylvania kid with terminal cancer whose dying wish is to go to New York City and have a date with supermodel Nikki Sinclair (Sunny Mabrey). It opens in select cities this weekend before its DVD release on May 23. Mini-Review: There's certainly a sweet charm to this film, a lot of it coming from the relationship between Angarano and his mother, as played by Cynthia Nixon. Then again, it also suffers from some of the same problems as many first time screenwriters, there being too many ideas and it being all over the place, both as far as tone and location. For instance, there's a whole sequence about the boys' side trip into a strip club that is completely unnecessary to the main story. More focus on the main character and his quest would have made this a stronger film. Rating: 5/10
Opening at New York’s Pioneer Theatre on Thursday is HOW I KILLED A SAINT (Red Diaper Productions), Teona Strugar Mtsevka’s feature film debut is about a young woman living in America who returns to her Macedonian home, only to discover it caught up in a violent civil awr.
KISS ME AGAIN (M.E.G.A. Films) is William Tyler Smith’s romantic comedy about a married couple who decide to test out their marriage by bringing in a Spanish woman, which causes a strange shift in their relationship. It opens at the Quad Cinema in New York.
CRAZY LIKE A FOX (Delphi Films) is the story of a farmer forced to give up his family land to a pair of real estate operators, who decides that he won’t leave without a fight. Moving into a nearby cave over the summer, he moves back into the farm with his family and then moving back with his family, leading to a face-off with the new land owners. It opens in New York, D.C. and Leesburg, Virginia.
THIS WEEKEND IN BOX OFFICE HISTORY:
The summer movie season officially begins this weekend with another big budget potential blockbuster, much like it’s been done for the last ten years, except that last year was the first time where neither new movie made significant waves as Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven failed to replicate the success of Gladiator five years earlier, and Joel Silver’s remake of House of Wax didn’t do nearly as well as the other successful horror remakes it was trying to mimic.
Then again, this weekend has been responsible for some huge record-setting movies, most notably the first Spider-Man movie which upped the box office ante forever in 2002 with an opening weekend just short of $115 million, a record that has yet to be broken despite a few films coming close. The following year, another Marvel movie, X2: X-Men United, did huge business, almost twice the opening of its predecessor, starting another successful summer rally. 2004’s Van Helsing, starring X-Men’s Hugh Jackman as a monster hunter, failed to do as well as hoped after early reviews and bad word-of-mouth killed it.
A few times, the summer movie season has kicked off with a big disaster film like Deep Impact and Twister, which had huge openings for their time, and could be more significant towards the success of next week’s remake of (The) Poseidon (Adventure) by Wolfgang Peterson.
Often, studios have tried to offer counter-programming against the big movies, and most of the time, they fail, with the exception of Hilary Duff’s Lizzie McGuire Movie, which did decent business against X2 in ’03.
|
Title |
Release Date |
Theater Count |
Weekend Box Office (in millions) |
Average |
Total Box Office |
|
Spider-Man |
5/3/02 |
3,615 |
$114.84 |
$31,769 |
$405.69 |
|
X2: X-Men United |
5/2/03 |
3,741 |
$85.56 |
$22,871 |
$214.95 |
|
The Mummy Returns |
5/4/01 |
3,401 |
$68.14 |
$20,035 |
$202.01 |
|
Van Helsing |
5/7/04 |
3,575 |
$51.75 |
$14,480 |
$120.03 |
|
Twister |
5/10/96 |
2,414 |
$41.06 |
$17,009 |
$241.89 |
|
The Mummy |
5/7/99 |
3,210 |
$43.37 |
$13,511 |
$155.25 |
|
Deep Impact |
5/8/98 |
3,156 |
$41.15 |
$13,039 |
$140.46 |
|
Gladiator |
5/5/00 |
2,938 |
$34.82 |
$11,852 |
$186.61 |
|
Kingdom of Heaven |
5/6/05 |
3,216 |
$19.64 |
$6,106 |
$47.40 |
|
The Lizzie McGuire Movie |
5/2/03 |
2,825 |
$17.34 |
$6,138 |
$42.67 |
|
The Fifth Element |
5/9/97 |
2,500 |
$17.03 |
$6,812 |
$63.55 |
|
House of Wax |
5/6/05 |
3,111 |
$12.08 |
$3,882 |
$32.05 |
LET’S LOOK AT THE NUMBERS: (final update 5.4.06)
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that Mission: Impossible III will be reigning over the box office this weekend, taking screens away from lesser returning movies in a classic case of Survival of the Fittest. The question is whether the franchise, which been out of sight and mind for nearly six years, can still pull off a huge opening, relying solely on Tom Cruise’s starpower. Then of course, there’s the question of what would be considered a respectable opening. Will $65 to 66 million be enough to do it or does it have to set some kind of record to really be impressive? Either way, it will be a lot of little Davids trying to take on the Goliath as New Line and Walden Media release their adaptation of the novel Hoot as counter-programming, trying to take the families away from RV for a second place showing. The independently-produced and distributed period horror film An American Haunting, starring Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland, will be trying to get the horror fans away from the big blockbuster, but it will be lucky if it can make any sort of impact this weekend. Expect Universal to try to expand United 93 into more theatres after a mediocre opening weekend, as well.
|
TW |
LW |
Title |
Weekend (in millions) |
Change |
# Of Theaters |
Average |
Week |
|
1 |
New |
Mission: Impossible III |
$69.5 |
N/A |
4,054 |
$17,144 |
1 |
|
2 |
New |
Hoot |
$10.5 |
N/A |
3,018 |
$3,479 |
1 |
|
3 |
1 |
RV |
$9.8 |
-40% |
3,651 |
$2,684 |
2 |
|
4 |
2 |
United 93 |
$7.2 |
-38% |
1,900 |
$3,958 |
2 |
|
5 |
3 |
Stick It |
$5.8 |
-46% |
2,038 |
$2,838 |
2 |
|
6 |
New |
An American Haunting |
$5.2 |
N/A |
1,667 |
$3,119 |
1 |
|
7 |
4 |
Silent Hill |
$4.0 |
-57% |
2,556 |
$1,565 |
3 |
|
8 |
5 |
Ice Age: The Meltdown |
$4.0 |
-45% |
2,426 |
$1,649 |
6 |
|
9 |
6 |
The Sentinel |
$3.9 |
-50% |
2,343 |
$1,665 |
3 |
|
10 |
8 |
Akeelah and the Bee |
$3.6 |
-40% |
2,196 |
$1,639 |
2 |
|
11 |
5 |
Scary Movie 4 |
$3.1 |
-55% |
2,537 |
$1,222 |
4 |
|
Est. Weekend Total |
Est. Avg. Drop-Off |
Est. Average PTA |
Next week, Wolfgang Peterson returns to the water with his remake of the disaster flick Poseidon, Lindsay Lohan gets unlucky in Just My Luck, and Disney’s soccer trilogy Goal! The Dream Begins… um… begins.
Copyright 2006 Edward Douglas
Take on The Weekend Warrior in the box-office related movie games at:
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